Gun purchases, prices soaring across the U.S.

Semiautomatics, magazines popular at Walmart, eBay

Randy Miller looks at a Remington shotgun while shopping at a Cabela’s sporting goods store in Maine last year. Gun buyers have flooded retail stores since Friday’s shooting in Connecticut. Nyt news service file

Randy Miller looks at a Remington shotgun while shopping at a Cabela’s sporting goods store in Maine last year. Gun buyers have flooded retail stores since Friday’s shooting in Connecticut. Nyt news service file

Guns Out of Stock at Wal-Mart as Magazine Prices Surge on

With President Barack Obama endorsing sweeping gun restrictions in the wake of the school shootings in Newtown, Conn., prices for handgun magazines are surging on eBay and semiautomatic rifles are sold out at many Walmart stores and other retailers.

Walmart, the world’s largest retailer, said that it would continue to sell guns, including rifles like the one used at Newtown, where 26 people, most of them children, were killed on Dec. 14. By contrast, Dick’s Sporting Goods suspended sales of similar guns at its more than 500 stores.

Searches of five kinds of semiautomatic rifles on Walmart’s website showed them to be out of stock at stores in five states, including Pennsylvania, Kansas and Alabama. Walmart doesn’t sell guns online, instead asking customers to input a ZIP code to see if their local store carries a specific weapon.

“We remain dedicated to the safe and responsible sale of firearms in areas of the country where they are sold,” said David Tovar, a spokesman for Walmart.

Walmart has about 10 modern sporting rifles, the gun industry’s term for firearms that look like an M-16 military rifle, listed on its website. The retailer removed a description and picture of the Bushmaster AR-15, which was the model used in Newtown, after the shootings.

In Miramar, Casey Adamson, owner of Wiser Owl Firearms and Tactical, said she’d received calls all day, mainly to price compare assault weapons. She said she’d started the day with 15 firearm receivers, but by 3:45 p.m. had one left. Adamson said she is sold out of the AR-15 and could not even get through to the distributor to order more, which she plans to do.

“It’s not about the weapon, it’s about gun ownership responsibility,” she said. “If you know that you have a child that has a mental illness, then you need to be a responsible owner.”

In 2006, Walmart reduced the number and variety of guns it offered in stores, and replaced them with more upscale products such as exercise equipment. It then reintroduced firearms to many stores in April 2011 as part of strategy to add merchandise back to shelves and revive sales growth at its Walmart locations in the U.S.

The move may have helped as U.S. Walmart stores posted their first gain in same-store sales in more than two years in October 2011. Walmart doesn’t disclose how many guns it sells, though at an analysts’ meeting in October it said gun revenue gained 76 percent in the first half of this fiscal year. The chain advertised a Sig Sauer M400 as one of its Black Friday doorbusters last month, offering the rifle for $50 off at $867.

Cabela’s Inc., an outdoor retailer that sells guns, didn’t return several calls seeking comment on whether it planned to change its firearm policies. Hunting equipment, which includes firearms, made up 41 percent of Cabela’s sales in 2011, according to a company filing. The retailer doesn’t provide sales data for just guns.